Life insurance policy, premium count rises in first quarter

According to LIMRA, total individual life insurance premiums grew 3 percent between January and March, with the overall policy count rising 5 percent.

Ashley Durham, a product research senior analyst at LIMRA, said whole life products were particularly popular with the public, which has been an ongoing theme.

"The biggest driver behind both total premium and policy count growth continues to be whole life," said Durham. "We saw growth in whole life sales across the industry, including three quarters of our survey's participants. It remains very attractive to consumers looking for security of premium and cash-value guarantees along with lifetime coverage."

LIMRA notes that when measuring annualized premium growth, universal life has historically been the runaway leader. That may be soon be changing, however, as the market share for whole life represented 32 percent - just seven percentage points behind universal life, which has held first place for the past nine years.